Preparing to engage in social marketing? A word to the wise – don’t separate your blog content from everything else you’re planning. Blog content, emailing, and search engine optimization (SEO) all need to be part of the same social marketing package, working together. The goal for all three needs to be the same – to build People-To-People (P2P) relationships.

Like many consumers, I recognize all the choices I have these days when I shop online. Before I buy a product, I usually check online customer reviews. A few bad reviews and I go elsewhere, looking for another supplier’s product.

Your customers and prospects are going to listen to you if you provide genuine information that will resonate with them. It must be authentic. And the best way to accomplish that is to use your blog to provide solutions.

Start by making a list of the most commonly asked questions your salespeople hear and use that list as a guideline for your blog’s “editorial calendar.”

With your blog at the heart of your content marketing strategy, you can now use email and social media to promote it. That will help your site rank higher in the search engines and drive traffic directly back to your Web site, leading to profitable consumer action and enhancing your brand as an industry leader.

P2P is about nurturing your existing clients and prospects.Here are four new social media P2P rules of thumb:

1. Focus more on teaching than selling.
2. When you post on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, educate, entertain or empower.
3. Write to your followers like people, not companies.
4. Be human. People like people, not faceless vendors.

Try these tools and tactics to initiate your P2P efforts:

• Give away free quality content in the form of whitepapers and case studies.
• Give away free samples of your work in the form of videos, slideshows, and so on.
• Align messages with communication channels.
• Encourage email sign up for all visitors who you drive back to your blog for lead nurturing.

Remember … whether your business is B2B (Business-To-Business) or B2C (Business-To-Consumer), it’s still all about being P2P – which means relating to people.

Use social media to get these P2P relationships started by boosting your SEO and increasing your findability.Social mediawill enhance your domain’s authenticity and reduce the time for Googlebot to find and index your content.

Remember, the more people who see you on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, and Pinterest, the more likely they are to open your email when it hits their inbox. And when they open it, they need to find Calls-To-Action (CTAs) and links back to your Web site or landing page.

Think of your marketing as an ongoing conversation. A good conversation requires both being a good listener and being relevant.